


_Flesh Wound

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [14]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 19:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10973646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: Clara has missed the right moment to leave.





	_Flesh Wound

[takes place in 2013, right after by any means necessary]

* * *

****She had missed the right moment to leave. She should've turned and walked away the moment she realised she was about to be ripped apart in an intensely personal conflict between two men who, each in his own way, didn't give a shit about anything else around them.

She should have walked while she still could. Should have left Aiden to his own, to fight it out with Damien on whatever sick little terms they could agree on.

But she hadn't. Somehow, she'd been caught in Aiden's tidal wave of determination. It was a compelling thing, watching him. Terrifying in its way, but not without appeal, when one had, like she did, the advantage of standing off to the side where most of the fallout wouldn't reach. It wasn't just that, though, it was that she understood how driven he was a little too well.

He was covering up his guilt, trying his hardest not to look at it and keep himself busy so the thoughts couldn't catch up to him. She understood it, because she felt that guilt, too, it was a shadow hovering over her fingers on the keyboard, in the quiet moments before a query returned its results, in the hours when she was too tired to stay awake and dropped into bed to chase what sleep she could.

It had been a mistake to get mixed up with it all. But as far back as that, she'd already been missing her chance to get out. Aiden had been offering money for information, anything at all. He'd been desperate for any leads at the time and information was her daily bread. It seemed like a lucrative deal, at first, the desperate were always easiest to negotiate with. It wasn't that she hadn't recognised who he was, it was that she'd not cared or minded that she'd been involved with him before, although he mustn't ever find out about it.

After that, one mistake just lead to another. Once she realised what he was after and why, the pieces fell into place for her, each a new nail in her coffin. She helped him recover the police report and the surveillance footage from the tunnel in Pawnee. And finding it, she'd read and watched it and it burned itself into her mind as if she'd been there, riding on a bike alongside the two others, pulling the trigger that caused all of what followed.

In an abstract way, she'd always _known_ what she was doing might lead to people being harmed. She'd told herself she didn't care, or didn't mind, or that she was just a small cog, irrelevant, feeding off crumbs everyone else had forgotten about. She just offered a service, using the tools and talents she had. Anyone in this world did the same and no one cared to look further than they had to.

But once she peeked behind that reassuring curtain of delusion and denial, she found she couldn't take it back. She couldn't leave Aiden now, because every time she tried, the situation was worse and his suffering was worse and her guilt kept nagging in every unguarded moment.

So she stayed. Stole the DedSec system hacks for him, though even she wasn't sure if she'd been _allowed_ to steal them or not. She stayed only for Aiden to discover the Bunker for her, though it had hardly been a selfless act. She stayed as he tangled with Crispin and that abhorrent slave auction. Pulled the strings from behind the scenes so he had his hands free, all the while lying to him with a smiling face.

She'd been wrong about him in the beginning.

She could've walked then. Thrown the system hacks at his feet and left. With them, he had all the tools he needed. He'd take longer without her help, but she'd seen his work, he'd get there. If what he was searching existed at all, he'd find it or go down in flames trying.

Instead, she'd put a genial mask over her face, something he'd enjoy looking at. To him, she was just Clara, friendly and helpful and just a little flirty. He seemed to like that and for her it was just a role, one of many she played as a matter of course.

She'd considered pushing for more, but it seemed unfair to tangle him up in yet another web while he was already being smothered by a dozen others. But it was a selfish act, too. If she got romantically — or just sexually — involved with him, it would make him truly look at her. He'd start paying attention to her, he'd _see_ her and she couldn't risk him seeing _through_ her. He would kill everyone responsible for his niece's death. She had no interest at all to be one of the corpses in his wake.

Watching the aftermath of Aiden's one man invasion of Rossi-Fremont, Clara had too much time to reminisce about these things, despite Ray Kenney's new presence in the Bunker. In a way, Ray was another thing she owned entirely to Aiden's tenacity and she hated it a little that she couldn't enjoy it as much as she should.

She had to be more wary of Ray. Aiden was smart, but he had too much on his plate already, she could fly under the radar with him, but Ray had the peace of mind to look at her closer. She'd covered her tracks well, but she understood where the limits were and the internet had a long memory. Not that Ray was suspicious of her or of what she was doing or why she was even there. He seemed to take her in his stride, enjoyed the banter and working with someone who could follow even his stranger flights of fancy.

"We're only waiting on you," Ray announced over his shoulder as the door to the Bunker unlocked and the metal walkway chittered traitorously under Aiden's weight.

Not ungrateful to be torn from her dark contemplation, Clara swivelled her chair to take a look at Aiden. News on the Rossi-Fremont mess a was already beginning to trickle through, but the details were still sparse. She hadn't been worried… no, alright, she had been a _little_ worried about him. She could be honest with herself at least, if no one else.

Aiden Pearce was a walking contradiction, nothing about him seemed to be making sense sometimes. None of her predictions about him had turned out to be true, but none of them were entirely _wrong_ either. And right there was just another instance of Aiden not making any sense.

Face hidden in the shadow of his cap and the upturned collar of his coat, it might pass muster by random passersby in the street. To anyone with instincts and experience, the fight was clearly still beating through his veins. It was apparent in the coiled control of his movements, someone who knew how to kill and couldn't decide if it was bad or not that it didn't bother him as much as it should. And yet, he was also carrying two pizza cartons he deposited on the only reasonable empty spot on the table.

"I'm fine," he said. He wasn't even forestalling any questions, it didn't matter to him if Ray or Clara were concerned, he was just giving them information he thought they might need. He added, "I'll be there in ten," and turned away.

Up close, he looked a little worse for wear. His coat had suffered burns and the clothes beneath were dirt-stained and splattered with drying blood.

"Well," Ray said, passing a critical glance over Aiden, but then he turned to the pizza. "If that ain't a nice surprise for a change."

It wasn't her business to worry about him, it really wasn't. If he needed help at all, she expected him to be mature enough to ask for it…

Upstairs, the light spilled out into the metallic darkness.

"I call dibs on a bacon slice," Clara said lightly as she got up to follow Aiden.

Ray chortled behind her, muttered, "I promise nothing."

Without looking, she couldn't be sure if Ray's gaze followed her upwards and she couldn't quite picture what expression he was wearing. She'd never seen him unguarded, only in moments carefully set up to appear as such. No wonder Ray was the mastermind behind ctOS, watching without being seen himself. It suited him alarmingly well.

Everyone in the Bunker was masquerading for their own benefit, it seemed.

The stairs chittered under her like an out-of-tune instrument and she stopped on the walkway, stepped aside to lean with her back against the railing, waiting for Aiden to notice — or acknowledge — her there.

He had already washed the blood and soot off and his clean skin looked raw, pallid in the bluish light, but he seemed to have dished it out more than take. He had sustained a handful of scratches and burns, a few bruises on his torso where the bullets had hit the vest. Now he sat on the bed, stripped down to his boxers and socks, one leg folded under him casually as he worked methodically to patch himself up. The contents of a first-aid kit were strewn all around him, half unfurled bandages and the discarded wrappers from band-aids, a pile of bloodied paper-towels, just as carelessly thrown away.

The whiff of disinfectant hung around him.

Nothing about his movements suggested pain. He wasn't careful with himself, seemed unheeding of the sting of the disinfectant or the ache of the bruises as he twisted forward to slap a band-aid on a smaller cut on his calf.

A harder snap of the metal she was leaning against had him look up. His gaze passed over her briefly, but he said nothing, focussed on the bandages in his hand, started wrapping it around his calf tightly. It seemed to be a grazing shot that had barely bled.

"Something wrong?" he asked after another moment.

He didn't seem to care that he was nearly naked; not for lack of modesty, Clara guessed, or some badly realised sense of exhibitionism. It was just too trivial when weighted against his other concerns.

"Do you need help?"

She saw the answer hovering on the tip of his tongue. _I'm fine._ She could practically already hear it, the next scene in their little drama playing out just like in the script.

"Actually, yes," Aiden said. He fixed the bandage on his leg and curled it up under him on the bed, so he could swivel his torso away from her. Crusted blood filled the depression of his spine, just between his shoulder-blades. Because of the blood, it was hard to see the actual injury and assess how bad it was or how deep it went.

If he'd meant to dress this himself, he'd have required at least two mirrors and some uncomfortable contortion he might or might not be capable of.

She considered a little teasing comment. Maybe asking him if he'd come down and _ask_ for help if she hadn't shown up to offer it, but as she carefully began to clean the blood away from his back, she felt she didn't want to break the silence. His skin was warm under her fingers, supple to the touch despite the tense twitch of muscle and hard edge of bone.

Once the blood was gone, it revealed a cut barely two inches long. It must have bled very badly, though, but it seemed fairly harmless now.

"You were lucky," she finally remarked. "How did this happen?"

"Iraq blew off the top of the building."

"I saw."

"Some piece got stuck under my vest," he explained.

She laughed a little, shaking her head.

"It not too bad," she said. "I think it's enough to glue it."

Aiden leaned forward, away from her touch, picked up the glue from the strewn tools on the bed in front of him, held it over his shoulder.

She applied it, fingers resting on the edges of the wound to keep everything in place.

"Don't move," she told him and saw the tendons in his neck jump, but he held still otherwise until the glue had set. She applied another layer, wondered if it'd be enough to keep the wound from re-opening if he exerted himself.

_"Ben,"_ she said and dropped her hands away from him. "If you need anything else…" she said as he turned around, gave him a little smile, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Thanks," he grunted.

"It's no trouble," she said, still smiling. _"Pantoute."_

She arched a brow and added, "Better come down before Ray eats all the pizza."

"I'll just clean this up first," he said as he slipped to his feet and carefully stretched his arms out over his head, testing the reliability of his newly closed injuries. A tiny groan worked itself from his lips with the movement.

In leaving, Clara glanced over her shoulder, watched Aiden's turned back for a second as he piled paper towels and bandage wrappers together and shoved everything aside. Quickly and efficiently, he dumped the rest of the utensils back into the first-aid kit. He started to turn, slip to his feet and step to the bag that contained his fresh clothes.

Abruptly, Clara decided she didn't need to be caught contemplating him like this and swung her legs into motion, making the metal whisper under her step for good measure.

* * *

Later, not much later, but a little, there was still the taste of bacon in her mouth and an aching, blooming pain in her arm from where Aiden had gripped it too hard. And there was a sneering, drawling voice speaking in her head, somehow displaced from the phone's speaker. 

_"Now this is a surprise,"_ Damien said. _"Is this Aiden's version of cranking up the charm? 'Glib and superficial charm'? He's got that, when he's not too busy being a complete tool. I'm sure he's read it somewhere, in one of his psychology textbooks. 'Men respond better to gentle female voices with an exotic accent'."_

"Aiden doesn't know. He…" She stopped. She didn't owe him an explanation, not until he demanded it as terms of the deal she needed to make. "I have an offer for you."

_"Let me think,"_ Damien said, drew the word out sardonically. _"You got nothing I want. Not my type, sorry."_

"You know I'm DedSec, right?" Clara asked, undeterred. "You know I have DedSec's ctOS system hacks."

_"Yes,"_ Damien chuckled. _"Giving them to Aiden…"_ he sighed dramatically. _"Not the smartest idea. You'll never get that genie back in the bottle, but I like to watch the fireworks."_

"Don't you want them?"

_"Who says I need them?"_

Too fast, she thought. His timing had been off, she'd piqued his interest at least. If he really wasn't interested, he would've hung up. Unless he just enjoyed toying with her, but she didn't think someone like him wouldn't want the hacks.

"You can have them," Clara said. "Just let Nicky Pearce go."

He barked a short, abrasive laugh. _"I sense a story,"_ he remarked. _"Trouble in paradise?"_

"Will you make the deal?"

_"Maybe. Give me the system keys and find out."_

"That's…"

_"Not fair?"_ he laughed. _"No, but that's what makes it interesting, don't you think?"_

She had nothing to bargain with other than the system hacks and it was better not to think about what Damien would do with them. Watching Aiden had been occasionally terrifying and whatever warped moral code he had to hold him in check, Damien lacked even that.

_"I see,"_ Damien said, sneering, smirking, voice crawling through the speaker. _"The system keys are worth more than that poor girl."_ His sardonic laughter stopped abruptly and was replaced by something harsh and angry and unyielding. _"It's just the health and happiness of other people. Who cares? Isn't that right?"_

She knew where this was going, Aiden's hand digging into her arm and the moment of sheer, unadulterated hatred in his eyes.

_"Did you think I wouldn't find out?"_ Damien snarled.

"I'm sorry," she said, inadequately and he was the wrong man to say it to.

_"Well,"_ he said, the laughter was back with a slightly altered undertone, designed to cut through flesh. _"You will be. Isn't that what they always say? You will be sorry."_

"Nicky Pearce has nothing to do with it."

_"No, but that's the game,_ ma petite pirate _. Innocent people, dragged down and trampled on. Ask your sweetheart Aiden how it's done, hurting the innocent to get what he wants. You, me, him, we're all the same. We'll end up the same, too. No happy endings for the likes of us."_

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm sending you the system keys. Just let her go. Please. It's all I can do."

The silence stretched as the data trickled through.

_"Very nice,"_ Damien remarked when the files had been sent. _"Let… How do you say? Let_ le fun _begin, shall we?"_

**Author's Note:**

> Here was to be a lengthy essay about Clara and how I don't like her and how it took forever to get this story done and that I kinda didn't want to do it all. But… who cares? So instead I'm just going remark on the fact that Aiden's sense of exhibitionism really isn't badly realised at all.


End file.
